PRINCETON — Chicken salad sliders, yogurt parfaits and black bean cookies are among the menu choices that will replace slushy drinks and deep-fried chips when students file into cafeterias in the Princeton school district this upcoming school year.

The school board Tuesday unanimously approved a $61,245 food service contract with Nutri-Serve Food Management of Burlington Township for the 2014-15 school year.

“It is very, very important to this board and this community that we have a food service program that provides high-quality nutrition for our students that expands their palates with the experience of foods from other places,” Superintendent Steve Cochrane said at the meeting.

The Princeton Public Schools participates in the National School Lunch Program at its four elementary schools only. Princeton High School and John Witherspoon Middle School are not on the NSLP, instead operating on a food service contract with Chartwells School Dining Services while still offering free and reduced-price lunches to eligible students.

Food management companies are self-sustaining programs — “basically like restaurants” — that hire their own staff, develop menus and cook and serve meals, board secretary Stephanie Kennedy said. The food management contract expires every five years, and Chartwells has been in place for 15 years, she said.

Parents have often criticized Chartwells’ offerings, which include Cocoa Puffs, Fritos and Pop-Tarts, and have urged the board to consider healthier options.

“I’ve asked the board and administrators questions about school lunches in the past, and so I was happy to see your choice and just wanted to commend you on a choice that seems to start new directions,” Steve Schultz told the board.

Chartwells and Nutri-Serve, which serves 83 public and private school districts in New Jersey, responded to the board’s request for proposals on April 29. The board’s facilities committee and administration reviewed the proposals and interviewed representatives of both companies, ultimately concluding Nutri-Serve would best serve the district.

“The companies were rated with a multi-page scoring matrix, or rubric, and Nutri-Serve was the unanimous selection by all members,” committee chair and board member Rebecca Cox said. “The committee found Nutri-Serve provides high-quality menus with lots of variation that incorporate the current food trends, such as pretzel buns, hummus and colorful selections of vegetables.”

District officials also called several of Nutri-Serve’s current customers and visited a district that just ended its first year with the company, Cox said.

The existing cafeteria staff will be offered jobs by Nutri-Serve, Cox said.

Cochrane held a town meeting June 4 attended by more than 100 students, parents and administrators to discuss a new district wide wellness initiative, addressing topics that included promoting healthy nutrition, balancing coursework with after-school activities and managing stress, Cochrane said.

“By the end of the evening, there was a very clear understanding that higher levels of wellness are necessary to higher levels of learning,” Cochrane said of the town meeting. “Food is an art, it’s a science, it’s a necessity. It is something that obviously has a powerful impact on physical wellness, also mental wellness.”

Only 9 percent of Princeton High School students participate in the food service program there, Cochrane said. Nutri-Serve expressed interest in growing those numbers and working with students to make the cafeteria an extension of the classroom, he said.

Nutri-Serve’s dietitian discussed the possibility of “a persuasive essay with students on the pros and cons of chocolate milk versus regular milk and having the kids look at doing the research and present their ideas on that,” Cochrane said.

“They have experience working with school gardens and farm-to-table kind of work in schools. They are not shy about that. They welcome that opportunity,” Cochrane said of Nutri-Serve. “They are very willing to work with teachers and building administrators to be an integral part in the educational life in the school.”